Essay Example on Psychiatric Mental Health Nursing

Psychiatry Nursing encompasses many things from dealing with patients who are angry, delusional, depressed in some way, and are out of control due to substance abuse. As we learned in class, it includes people of all ages from children to grown-ups to the old. My clinical experience enabled me to connect and practice the knowledge I had learned in class. It was an experience that reminded me of the codes of conduct in dealing with patients. Arrogance among most of the patients was a common phenomenon, I had to handle the patients with dignity and care and sometimes forced to calm them down by talking to them (Varcarolis, 2016). . Patients confidentiality was a key issue in my working experience at the psych department. I had learned this in class on how to keep the useful information regarding the patient confidential. This is one aspect that I had really to connect with from the class. In the psych department, I was able to associate well with all other students and the staff nurses in the unit. Cooperation was stressed by the head of the department, and through this, I managed to develop a process recording as well as fill drug cards for the patients. What I observed from the psych unit is that procedures like performing IVs and dressing are not that common (Townsend, 2014).

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In this department, there were several key personnel with different roles who work in close cooperation to attain the best care for the patients. The staff here included a senior consultant doctor who visited the department after every one week. His role was to see how the patients are faring and advice on what to do. The other important personnel was the nurse unit manager. Her work was to ensure all the activities of the psych ward are running smoothly. Others in the department included the nurse practitioners who dealt with patients who were critically out of control. There were also several registered nurses who used to perform the day to day care and give medications as well to the patients. The physiotherapist was also relevant and had a role to play making sure that the patients are physically fit for instance for those who might get dislocations due to inappropriate behaviors within the ward. Residents doctors also had the role of looking after the patients on the ward by prescribing the required medication. Finally, there were two registrar physicians who their role was to supervise the resident doctors, interns as well as students. All these trained personnel worked together to realize the best care for the psych patients (Townsend, 2014).

Looking at the workflow pattern of the of the psych health unit it differs from that of the clinical unit in the sense that the psych unit only could allow the nurses to the patient's rooms at specific times and might require a security personnel as some of them might be violent. On the clinical unit, work goes on as it is since most of these patients are mentally stable and could not be a threat.

My psychiatric experience was helpful as I had a chance to interact with different patients and staff. Working with psych patients is one thing that I might like to do. I had never been interested, but after receiving the cooperation from the friendlier staff nurses and the learning how to handle the patients, I am more open to working on a psychiatric unit.

After gaining the knowledge on how to address and deal with the psych patients, this will be an upper hand in my future nursing career that I will use to perform the best for the patients. Through the clinical experience, I have learned the benefits of working as a team to achieve the best for my patients in future.

References

Townsend, M. C. (2014). Psychiatric mental health nursing: Concepts of care in evidence-based practice. FA Davis.

Varcarolis, E. M. (2016). Essentials of psychiatric mental health nursing: A communication approach to evidence-based care. Elsevier Health Sciences.